The Kurds are crying out for support, for Western governments to help them.

They demonstrate with banners saying “Your silence is killing us.” They are right.

This is Guernica, this is Madrid. These are our comrades. But where is the left? Where are the thousands who rightly throng the streets in support of another stateless, oppressed people in Palestine? Where is the Stop The War Coalition? Why the silence? Why, why, WHY?

Since 16th of September, the Kurdish city of Kobane in northern Syria have been defending themselves against the onslaught of ISIS

Those Kurdish areas captured by ISIS have seen mass executions and enslavement of female Kurdish civilians take place, indicating a potentially likely future if Kobane falls to the hands of ISIS

That Kobane, the home of the progressive “Rojava Revolution”, is the political base of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD)

That the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, allied with the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), is the key progressive Kurdish political force

That the Kurdish resistance fighters, which include the all-female defence unites YPJ (Women’s Protection Unit) which make-up 30% of Kurdish militias, have been fighting ISIS with light weaponry and practically no international support against the more advanced military of ISIS

Turkey has not provided any military or monetary support for the Kurdish resistance to ISIS, despite the continuous calls for intervention by the Kurdish community in the legal borders of Turkey

Left Unity Believes;

That ISIS is a reactionary and gruesome organisation which has caused suffering and death to the civilian populations of large parts of Syria and Iraq

That the Kurdish resistance and progressive political establishment are worthy of international solidarity and support

The British Kurdish community have repeatedly demanded solidarity for the people of Syrian Kurdistan, with little support from the established British left

That internationalism is the cornerstone of socialist politics and is more needed today than ever before

Left Unity Resolves:

To coordinate a fundraising campaign for the (Syrian) Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) together with Kurdish community organisations and other supportive groups

To campaign for the de-criminalisation of the Kurdish PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party)

To campaign for the British government to grant asylum-seeker status to any and all Kurdish refugees seeking asylum in Britain